Notes from the Community, Volume 6

More art, more comments, more links. Settle in and find a few things you'll like. 🛋️

Apr 12, 2024

Friends and readers, thanks for being out there! I’m so glad to be writing this newsletter and interacting with lots of people in the community. Here’s our sixth roundup of community notes, featuring reader comments, links, and more.

What We’ve Covered So Far

We’re now fourteen weeks into the year. So far we’ve covered:

Introduction, It Was Going So Well, Unhelpful Life Advice, From Rejection to Reflection, Overthinking, A Couch Can Make You Happy, “I Wish I’d Made That Change Later,” Why This Now?, “Your Voicemail Isn’t Working,” Your Last 40 Minutes, Imposter Syndrome Isn’t What You Think, Consider the Opposite of What You’re Worried About, How I Use (and Don’t Use) Adderall to Focus, You Can Be Better than You Are, Is It Always Best to "Do What Makes You Happy"?, A Tale of Two Yoga Teachers, The Felt Sense, No One Teaches You How to Breathe, The Trauma of Adult Undiagnosed ADHD, “What matters to me right now?”, “Wellbeing is about capacity”: A Conversation with Emma Gannon, Lessons From Your Six-Year-Old-Self, Try This When You Aren’t Sure What To Do, Time Anxiety: Can You Take a Quick Survey?, If You Can't Learn Math It's Not Your Fault, Consider this if you like taking care of people, Time Blindness, The Perks of Being Misunderstood, You’re Always Going to Lose at Something, Election Anxiety Is Real, So Make a Plan to Disengage, Attention Has a Cost, "There’s no one life script for everyone": A conversation with Sari Botton

Also! An initial set of activities (more of these are on the way):

I’m looking forward to seeing the list expand as the year progresses.

Popular Comments 📝

Most posts will have the option to comment—and it’s so fun to see readers jumping in!

In this section I’ll highlight a few recent comments that were upvoted the most by the community. (These are edited lightly for brevity, without changing the tone. Read the full comments and many more on each post’s page.)

From

Matthew Eaton

“A good way to check if you are doing the right thing is to stop doing it for a week and see how you feel. If you feel like everything has lifted and you feel a spark of joy, then you found the reason to continue to not do the thing.
Never be a belief thief: Stealing the belief you have to do something because someone else does it. That direction leads to misery and pain, not to mention lost time.”

From

Nicky Hajal

, on the post Time Blindness

The other day I arrived somewhere 7 minutes early and I caught myself thinking, "Man, I didn't have to leave so early, I could have gotten something else done..."
Then I realized, "Wait, no! Being 7 minutes early means I actually got here at the appropriate time! I did good!"
It sounds weird, but it actually was important to give myself some internal praise for that so I would seek that out more in the future.

And from

Melissa Sandfort

I think unaddressed trauma has a lot of impact on our capacity to perceive time. As children in unsafe environments, I think our minds develop the capacity to blank out what is totally impossible to process. And then, as adults we’re left with this blanking out part who can’t let down it’s guard or stop doing it’s job until the underlying trauma is fully addressed.
As I heal my trauma, my time blindness has improved somewhat, but in the meantime, these top down approaches are so crucial for being a functional adult. My vision is to heal it from the bottom up by getting to the root of the traumas, so that I don’t have to have this dissociative relationship to time. But meanwhile, I’m ordering even more timers!

From

Carol Szymanski

on the post The Perks of Being Misunderstood:

People are generally quite fearful. They yearn to be carbon copies of others and not stand out. To stand out in school is to be humiliated.

I’ll never forget the girl several years older than my grade who rode a stick with stuffed head pony all over the school yard in seventh grade with her eyes closed. She was an object of curiosity though I don’t recall anyone openly mocking her. She simply loved horses. I found out decades later that she now lives in England and owns several horses. That is power. She believed it and she manifested it. May we all show that kind of faith in ourselves.

And from

Jim Crotty

The change that created the most positive energy for me recently was removing myself from a very toxic, and yet comfortable, environment, physically (moved to a state that didn't make sense to them), emotionally, and psychologically.
You must break the toxic patterns; sometimes, you must detach and remove yourself from the harmful environment. That's not always possible, especially when you have younger children still in school and other family pressures keeping you in place, but once the children are grown and the family pressures ease, make the change!

From

Mika

, on the post You’re Always Going to Lose at Something :

This made me think that we could internalise:
“I’m such a quitter, I never stick at anything” or
“I’m so glad I figured out early that that wasn’t a good fit for me. I learned a lot and will take that into the next thing.”

From

Margaret Martín

, on the post Election Anxiety Is Real, So Make a Plan to Disengage:

I work in the political field and I see the mental distress daily. I think this is good advice. Everyone needs to do a mental inventory about how news and news about politics affects them. Politics has always been toxic and corrosive. People who live in this sewer like your local elected officials get ground down by all the hate and anger as well as all the temptations. It’s a crucible where human flaws are magnified x10. That’s on the wholesale side. Most of us are on the retail side. We are consumers. So we can have a choice about what we consume.

And from

Lou Belle

, on the post ACTIVITY: The Replacement Game:

It's really about showing yourself things you're scared of aren't that scary. Procrastination is a great example. We usually procrastinate because we're avoiding the uncomfortable feelings we think we'll experience doing a certain task. The best way to get out of this habit is to just do tasks you're putting off, and keep doing it until it becomes natural to just do it. You can make more progress on the whole by then taking some time to think about why you're really avoiding that particular thing.

Art & Other Fun Things

Note: if you like any of these images, be sure to click through on the links. What’s included here is just a small selection of the full work.

On Being Your Own Why by
Kelcey Ervick

How I Want to Tell Time by
Candace Rose Rardon

Use a Visual Journal to draw out Specific Knowledge by
Adam Ming

Posts and Stories I Liked

In addition to my regular browsing, every couple of weeks I do a public call for submissions. I’ll share many of the links that people send me in future posts.

Here are a few posts I’ve enjoyed recently:

Note: if you’re publishing a newsletter, feel free to comment in this post with the name of your publication so that other readers can find you.

Special Thanks to our Paid Subscribers

As promised, most content on A Year of Mental Health will be completely free. Paid subscribers make this possible.

Even though most posts are freely available at the time of publication, many of you have already upgraded your subscriptions—and I am grateful! Thank you. 🙏 🙏 🙏

Whenever someone upgrades, the platform offers subscribers a chance to write a note to the creator, which can be shared with the subscriber’s permission.

Here’s one that I received this week from Hannah M:

""I have loved your books and work for a long time and find it so helpful in pursuing my own purpose!"

and another from Amy G:

"Who doesn't need a year of mental health? I know I sure do! Thank you."

Again, I want this project to be helpful and valuable to you. We’re just getting started, and there’s much more to come.

Thank you for reading A Year of Mental Health. If you’re enjoying it, please pass it on!

The Vault: Tools & Resources for Paid Subscribers

A while back we launched The Vault! This is the first phase of my plan to reward paid subscribers while keeping most posts freely available to everyone. 🔐

Among other items, I recently added an audio version of the post on dyscalculia. You can download or listen to these in the app, whatever is convenient to you. 🎙️

I plan to add to The Vault throughout the year, so stay tuned for more.

Scholarships Available Upon Request

What if you want a paid subscription but can’t afford it? It’s all good, we’ve got you covered! 🤝

Specifically, we now have a scholarship plan where you can pay whatever you can afford. These scholarships are covered by our Founding Members—thank you, Founding Members!

If you’d like one, just send a note to team @ chrisguillebeau .com with the word “Scholarship” in the subject line. We’ll help you get whatever option you need.

On the Horizon

That’s it for now, but I’ll be back Monday at 7am Pacific time. Upcoming topics include: why it’s hard to do easy things, how to be happier, and exposure therapy.

And maybe a surprise guest or two! Like I said, there’s much more to come. 🎁

🌻 A Year of Mental Health

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